Dry fly tails

[Ray Kunz]

What are the most popular materials used for dry fly tails these days? Originally the material suggested was "Spade hackle" barbs. But today's chickens don't have them. Microfibbets and some paintbrush fibers seem acceptable but I personally like bleached or dyed mink tail fibers except they are hard to come by. Premium Sable artist brush fibers are nice but you have to tap into your IRA to afford them.
Maybe some thoughtful folks could get a bunch of old fur coats and set up a new product line.

[Uncle Jesse]

Why not use a few strand of deer or elk body hair? I must confess I do when tying dries at times. I have a little horse mane which is rather stiff and make a good look nymph tail/antenna so if you know someone with a horse you might want to give that a try.

[ScottP]

I use Charlie Collins tailing feathers (used to be spade hackle, now mostly scapular feathers which work just about as well) for most of my mayflies; got these years ago and haven't even come close to using them up. For attractors like foam-back convertibles, humpies, etc I like woodchuck tail or moose body hair.

Regards,
Scott

[narcodog]

I use Collins hackle pack and strung hackle packs.

[Jayatwork]

Coq de Leon, Moose body hair, micro fibbetts...

[Donald Nicolson]

A good source of dry fly tails is an old fashioned shaving brush, it is still possible
to find them if you look in village general stores, if you still have any left.
They can be surprisingly cheap and a couple or three will probably last a lifetime.
The fibres can be coloured easily with a waterproof felt tip, although some of the floatants might affect the colour even then.

[branhap]

Moose body hair, micro fibbetts, antron.

[RonT]

Another vote for woodchuck tail hair. IHMO more durable than Moose mane and....best of all...free.
R

[Allan]

Mostly Collins 'Spade Hackle'. The way Charlie described the 'tailing feathers' to me, this was done while I watched him remove the feathers, the 'scapula' and 'spade' are one in the same. Some older necks have feathers along the edge that can be used as tailing. These were often incorrectly referred to as spades. Other than that, I use guard hairs from a few different mammals.

Allan

[Denny]

All birds, this includes chickens, both roosters and hens do have scapula feathers. Tiers call them spades. They start at the first joint down the wing and go on up across the back, between the cape hackle and saddle hackle. They are smaller out on the wing, then gradually get larger as you go on up onto the back. The reason some tiers think there are none on our roosters today is because some breeders cut them off, package only the spades for sale. We here at Conranch do not cut them off. When processing, the horrizontal cut, level with the two shoulders, goes right through the middle of the spades. So, on all of our capes you will get some spades and at the top of the saddle you get some also. By themselves they make nice tails but Ray has it correct ("Spade hackle" barbs.) Actually any of the longer barbs from any of the larger size hackle on a cape do work nicely for tails. The coloration on many of the spades is outstanding and we tiers like the looks of them. I like all of the stiffer guard hairs found on many animals. My favorite for wet flies is to flurl my dubbing, using the Rope dub method. I think it traps air bubbles and works on the fish.

Denny